Climate Change

Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil - environment - 26 June 2007. New CO2 Sucker Could Help Clear the Air. Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air.

Down the road, the new material could enable the development of large-scale batteries and even form the basis of "artificial trees" that lower atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in an effort to stave off catastrophic climate change. These long-term goals attracted the researchers, led by George Olah, a chemist at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. Olah, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize in chemistry, has long envisioned future society relying primarily on fuel made from methanol, a simple liquid alcohol. As easily recoverable fossil fuels become scarce in the decades to come, he suggests that society could harvest atmospheric CO2 and combine it with hydrogen stripped from water to generate a methanol fuel for myriad uses.

They turned to polyethylenimine (PEI), a cheap polymer that is a decent CO2 absorber.
Robert Weidemer's aftershock survival summit predicts the unthinkable. How the Tesla Turbine Works"
Most people know Nikola Tesla, the eccentric and brilliant man who arrived in New York City in 1884, as the father of alternating current, the form of electricity that supplies power to almost all homes and businesses.

But Tesla was a prodigious inventor who applied his genius to a wide range of practical problems. All told, he held 272 patents in 25 countries, with 112 patents in the United States alone.
Butanol fuel. Butanol may be used as a fuel in an internal combustion engine.

Because its longer hydrocarbon chain causes it to be fairly non-polar, it is more similar to gasoline than it is to ethanol. Butanol has been demonstrated to work in vehicles designed for use with gasoline without modification. It has a four link hydrocarbon chain.[1] It can be produced from biomass (as "biobutanol")[2] as well as fossil fuels (as "petrobutanol"), but biobutanol and petrobutanol have the same chemical properties. Production of biobutanol[edit] Butanol from biomass is called biobutanol.[3] It can be used in unmodified gasoline engines.[4]
Welcome to the Zhu research group. New Study: Solar Grid Parity Is Here Today. Solar materials prices are down, financing is more accessible and technology has extended solar system life.

The result: The price of solar energy-generated electricity, calculated by a legitimate levelized cost of energy (LCOE) method, is now competitive in many regions with the price of electricity generated by conventional sources. To be clear, this review of solar photovoltaic LCOE is not one of those “if coal and nuclear paid for the real harm they do” analyses. It is a hard look at the actual numbers. The study’s biggest surprise, said co-author Joshua Pearce, Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering Professor at Queen’s University and Michigan Technological University, was how much outdated information and misinformation there is about the price of residential and small/medium system solar energy. “We have reached a tipping point,” he said.
Breakthrough could double solar electricity ouput.

Solar panels at the Sarnia Photovoltaic Power Plant in Sarnia, Canada,… (Brent Lewin / Bloomberg ) A new discovery from a chemist at the University of Texas at Austin may allow photovoltaic solar cells to double their efficiency, thus providing loads more electrical power from regular sunlight.

Not only that, but it’s way cheap.
Power Flowers to domesticate wind turbines. Arguments still rage on, but it's generally accepted that we need to roll out more sustainable power solutions and break away from our reliance on fuels that are going to disappear one day.

As advances in solar, wave and wind technologies gather pace, Dutch design house NL Architects has been looking at ways to bring wind turbines closer to where the power they produce is needed, instead of being located on remote hillsides. Inspired by a vertical-axis turbine called Eddy, the team thinks the answer may lie in tree-like creations named Power Flowers. View all While most of us will offer strong vocal backing for the construction of wind farms, that can soon change if someone suggests building one nearby. As a result, the tri-blade towers get exiled to the middle of nowhere – or even further away.

119 One-Liners to Respond to Climate Science Myths. Green Tea May Fight Cancer But Tea Bags May Cause It. Green tea is not only a healthy alternative to sugary drinks, studies show that it may also decrease your risk for certain cancers .

Studies among populations who regularly drink green tea indicate that the antioxidants in the tea may inhibit the growth of cancer cells. However, a chemical used in the manufacture of tea bags is a carcinogen, and may actually increase your risk of cancer . Antioxidants in Green Tea May Inhibit Cancer Cells Similarly to other antioxidant rich foods such as chocolate, red wine, and berries, green tea’s catechins (certain types of antioxidants) help to reduce the number of free radicals in your body. These free radicals can be destructive to your body, causing damage to DNA and helping to cause health problems such as cancer and cardiovascular problems.

Man Creates Lamp Powered By Gravity. 2007 Virginia Tech graduate Clay Moulton recently won second place in the Greener Gadgets Design Competition in New York City for the Gravia gravity lamp.

According to my dictionary gravity is defined as "The natural force of attraction between the earth and my penis that makes it drag on the ground when I walk.
" The lamp's electricity is generated by the slow fall of a mass that spins a rotor. The resulting energy powers 10 high-output LEDs that fire into the acrylic lens, creating a diffuse light. The operation is silent and the housing is elegant and cord free -- completely independent of electrical infrastructure.
ScienceInsider: Breaking news and analysis from the world of science policy.
A proposal by the Obama administration to close a historic marine research laboratory near Beaufort, North Carolina, is drawing pushback from the scientific community and local members of Congress.

Although the administration frames it as a tough choice in a time of fiscal restraint, critics argue that the proposed closure of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) lab would endanger crucial marine research. Founded more than 100 years ago, the NOAA laboratory on Pivers Island near Beaufort conducts research into a variety of marine science subjects, including fish stocks, ecosystem function, and the health of aquatic creatures. Its work has helped scientists improve how they forecast harmful algal blooms, and it set in place the first study of invasive lionfish in the South Atlantic, those familiar with the lab say. And it is the only NOAA lab between Miami, Florida, and Sandy Hook, New Jersey. The closure is far from set in stone.
Java Tutorial - Convert String to int - Java Code Examples. Zen Coding: A Speedy Way To Write HTML/CSS Code - Smashing Coding.

Advertisement In this post we present a new speedy way of writing HTML code using CSS-like selector syntax — a handy set of tools for high-speed HTML and CSS coding. It was developed by our author Sergey Chikuyonok and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers.
Forget electric vehicles: Here come the 50-mpg gas and diesel cars. “The way for the industry to close the gap on fuel economy isn’t hybrid powertrains,” says John Krafcik, CEO of Hyundai Motor America. “They’re expensive, complicated and they create a challenge with margins and profit.”

And according to Peter Marks, the outgoing chairman and CEO of auto supplier Bosch LLC, “There will be internal-combustion engines for decades to come. The engineers are excited about the possibilities, which includes downsizing engines so they’re better able to meet lower-emission targets [such as 54.5 mpg for the U.S. by 2025].” An affordable five-passenger sedan delivering 50 mpg on the highway? No problem, these guys say.
Soils Offer New Hope As Carbon Sink. The huge potential of agricultural soils to reduce greenhouse gases and increase production at the same time has been reinforced by new research findings at NSW Department of Primary Industries’ (DPI) Wollongbar Agricultural Institute in Australia. Trials of agrichar - a product hailed as a saviour of Australia’s carbon-depleted soils and the environment - have doubled and, in one case, tripled crop growth when applied at the rate of 10 tonnes per hectare. Agrichar is a black carbon byproduct of a process called pyrolysis, which involves heating green waste or other biomass without oxygen to generate renewable energy.

Tim Flannery is a major advocate of agrichar and pyrolysis. In The Bulletin magazine, Flannery recently ranked “fostering pyrolysis-based technologies” fourth among his five steps for saving the planet, because they convert crop waste into fuel and agrichar which can be used to enhance soil fertility and store carbon long-term.
Feds silence scientist over salmon study. Pollution Perspective: One Giant Cargo Ship Emits As Much As 50 MILLION Cars. Design For a Better World!
Living Off-Grid: Our Micro Hydro Alternative Energy System. IIED - Publications search. The World's First Vertical Forest Is Growing Sky High. Sesion 5_C Machado_Enbrapa_Brasil.pdf (application/pdf Object)
Gasoline Fuel Cell Would Boost Electric Car Range. GPI's waste-to-fuel process validated by U.S. military - National Breakthrough Energy. New Concrete Made From Coal Plant Waste Lasts 10 Times as Long. Researchers Develop Biofuel Alternative To Ethanol.

JBI's Plastic To Oil Gets Operating Permit. EU sees solar power imported from Sahara in 5 years. Layer 8: BP oil spill disaster data available online from US Dept. of Energy. Natural Oil Seeps and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster: A Comparison of Magnitudes. Natural seeps can be thought of as natural springs from which liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons (hydrogen-carbon compounds) leak out of the ground.